taylor swift red poll

still adore "Starlight"

well, you need love in an increasingly terrifying world

“the lucky one” is a rilo kiley song

oh my
what a marvelous tune

honestly "everything has changed" is a good song that happens to have ed sheeran on it

an accurate statement of underacknowledged truth

the beginning with 'state of grace' kills me everytime.

Since we've been talking so much about Taylor Swift's lyrics, and there doesn't seem to be a Taylor Swift: Classic or Dud thread, I thought I'd come in here and say how much I like the song "Begin Again." I have mixed feelings about Swift's work, and I'm not crazy about her last two albums, but this is one song where I think all the Swifty details - the high heels, the James Taylor records, the general upper-class-ness of the whole cafe scene - add up to something intensely perceptive about the human experience.

"On a Wednesday/in a cafe/I watched it begin again" is such a beautiful line on its own; there's something very appealing to me about that that contrast between the mundane, the ordinary, and that unexpected sense of life renewing itself. The word "watched" is a nice detail, with the way it puts her outside of herself, watching herself come back to life; it's like she's at a place where she can see it more than she can feel it. It reminds me of John Prine singing "And I find it real surprising/for myself to hear me say/that everything is cool/everything's okay."

But this is also a really nuanced portrait of what seems like mild PTSD from a toxic, borderline abusive relationship. This is where I think all the biographical stuff that surrounded this album really got in the way. If you forget all that, and just think of this as a song about someone getting out of a relationship where her interests, her personality and her general worth were constantly dismissed, it becomes a really beautiful "this is your brain on PTSD" character sketch: her passionate gratitude for basic politeness; her intense surprise that someone could find her funny, the way every interaction with her new date sends her brain circling back to the ex and how he saw her, so that even as she's giving us this charming image of her date laughing, her interior monologue keeps making it into a reflection of everything that was missing in her old relationship. And then that moment at the end when the new guy is carrying on a perfectly ordinary conversation about movies, and you realize this is the first time she's been able to stop thinking for long enough to actually hear him. I don't think I would have to know anything about the biographical details behind this to know that this new relationship isn't going to last; this isn't really a love song so much as it's a song about slowly coming back to a sense of your own self-worth. And there are a million songs about that out there, and many of them suck, but this one rings true to me.

It's funny that I like this song so much, because Taylor's tendency to always cast herself as the victim and her ex as the bad guy is one of the things I find frustrating about her early work, and I like Lover in part because it's a shift away from that. But hey, sometimes there really is a bad guy and a victim, and I think this is a perceptive and beautiful song about the aftermath of a relationship like that.

that's a really great analysis!!! i sometimes forget how much i love that song and reading that totally put me back in touch with it

Thank you for saying that! I was starting to feel kind of embarrassed about that post. It's frustrating when I find myself using a million heavy words to describe a song that I value precisely for its lyrical economy and lightness of touch.

lol i mean i feel like that's what criticism is

you def clarified the way i personally connect to the song (as the ptsd aftermath of a really bad relationship), i just had never put words to it

Shame there were no votes for One More Red Nightmare.

And here ya go

The next album that I’ll be releasing is my version of Red, which will be out on November 19. This will be the first time you hear all 30 songs that were meant to go on Red. And hey, one of them is even ten minutes long🧣 https://t.co/FOBLS5aHpS pic.twitter.com/6zWa64Owgp

— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) June 18, 2021

Cool!

:D

ten minute long Red-era Taylor let'sgoooooooo

it was always spiritually a double album, to me

it's a 10 minute We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together (Oops! All WEEEEEEs remix)

lol i was about to say

22 (The Last Nine Years Remix)

Is the 10-minute song a long version of "All Too Well"? Wasn't that originally an epic?

who the hell cares -- seriously

so much new music but we Swift fans are supposed to put more time into another version of an album?

xxp My Swiftie coworker says with authority that it is indeed “All Too Well.”

...now with Drums & Space!

very excited for taylor's mellon collie

The infinite regress

it would be more exciting if she made her mellon collie now in her new indie-singer/songwriter style, rather than re-releasing old music...

but a ten-minute version of all too well? sometimes quantity really is more important than quality. inject it directly into my veins.

so much new music but we Swift fans are supposed to put more time into _another_ version of an album?

this album already had too many needless tracks

Preorder is digital download format only? Why

I dunno, I can readily believe that she wrote a shitload of tracks that (a) didn’t make it; and (b) are better than several of the songs that were included. From a sales perspective it makes more sense to include a blah Gary Lightbody duet and a flawed-but-interesting Mazzy Star homage over a sixth and seventh flawless love song about Jake Gyllenhaal.

this album already had too many needless tracks

― dyl, Saturday, June 19, 2021 12:49 AM (one hour ago)

wrong

anyway artists release expanded editions of albums w/ demos and b sides all the time, what's the big deal

if the vault tracks for fearless hadn’t been mostly astonishing i’d be wondering myself, but

*presses post*
*cackles maniacally*

Level: casually cruel in the name of being honest pic.twitter.com/Tf0ahCMql8

— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) August 5, 2021

phoebe bridgers and chris stapleton to appear on red (taylor's version)

fairly good upgrade from Ed Sheeran and Snow Patrol guy

don't worry, ed sheeran will still be there

of course

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRxrwjOtIag

10 minute "all too well" doesn't really justify its length but it's still great to hear. gorgeous & shimmering & she wrings endless new variations out of the melody

the actual rerecordings of red are either ok (title track) or suck (i knew you were trouble). i still don't like this project

i thought trouble and getting back together both sounded noticeably livelier and more fun on first listen... is she doing 1989 as well? that'd be insane. wildest dreams is a worldie

"All Too Well" is probably my favorite Swift song -- the one that made me fully confident that she was more than the current teen pop sensation.

I love this through about the 7 minute mark and am fully obsessed with the new lyrics!:

They say all's well that ends well/ but I'm in a new hell every time/ you double-cross my mind/
You say if we had been closer in age maybe it would have been fine/ and that made me want to die/
The idea you had of me who was she?/ A never-needy ever lovely jewel whose shine reflects on you/
Not weeping in a party bathroom/ some actress asking me what happened/ YOU. That's what happened. YOU.

the brand new arrangement of "girl at home" is dope

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNckfN9upqo

her version of "better man" is also like... 1000x better than the little big town version? i think? someone confirm

"nothing new"... wow a long lost collection of devastating taylor swift lyrics from 2012, just what i wanted, brb crying forever

How long will it be cute
All this crying in my room
When you can’t blame it on my youth
And roll your eyes with affection
And my cheeks are growing tired
From turning red and faking smiles
Are we only biding time till I lose your attention?
And someone else lights up the room
People love an ingénue

kick my ass taylor swift!!!!

Nothing new is definitely too good to have been shelved

Whether you prefer the re-recordings or OG is kinda besides the point here, I think, the genius of the project is that we, people around the world, will sit down again with her entire album discography - en masse- and really talk and listen to it. I don't know exactly how she'd be able to make these big events happen without the gimmick of the project. We re-appraise, we find new truths from different contexts, and for her, as a businesswoman, the breadth of her career is appreciated by more people and sells a lot more. Plus of course the extra EPs worth of new old songs. For something that does seem like it happened by accident, it's brilliant.

"message in a bottle" like the rerecorded "girl at home" is like an alt-universe version of taylor-going-pop, very refreshing

Didn't get into this when it came out but my kids are into it and I'm enjoying listening to it with fresh ears.

I really rode hard for this album when it came out and can't say I've revisited it even once in the 8 or 9 years since. Big & Rich 2.0

even the new ed sheeran duet ("run") is really good, lmao